


Lightshow

by Sporelett



Series: Fuckupstuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bloodswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 21:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5391539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporelett/pseuds/Sporelett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is PORRIM AMPORA and you are currently fighting for your life.</p>
<p>The night is hot and close around you, pressing on your horns like the cloggy water at the bottom of the harbor. Although dawn is still hours away, the toppled ruins of shattered buildings which surround you are lit with an omnipresent glow which further exposes the flitting movements of shadows rushing from shelter to blasted shelter. Flashes of brighter light crack through the scene like lightning strikes, and each time has you grinning from fin to fin. There is nothing like a firefight to get your blood pusher pumping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightshow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place at least a few sweeps after the previous one in the series, at a time when certain characters have defected from the government to join the rebel movement vying to reinstate the seadwellers as a benevolent ruling power. Check out the series description for general info on the setting if you haven't already, and feel free to comment with questions if that's your fancy!

          Your name is PORRIM AMPORA and you are currently fighting for your life.

          The night is hot and close around you, pressing on your horns like the cloggy water at the bottom of the harbor. Although dawn is still hours away, the toppled ruins of shattered buildings which surround you are lit with an omnipresent glow which further exposes the flitting movements of shadows rushing from shelter to blasted shelter. Flashes of brighter light crack through the scene like lightning strikes, and each time has you grinning from fin to fin. There is nothing like a firefight to get your blood pusher pumping.

          You use the lulls in between flashes to sight your targets, nailing strangers who likely have friends and quadrants without hesitation. When the light is too blinding to see through you duck back into the shade of a toppled statue to wait it out. Earlier during the night you’d been shooting without pause, keeping in constant motion to avoid retaliation while you razed entire structures to flush your enemies out of hiding. Between the crosshairs and the snaps of psionic charge exploding through the oppressive night air it was bright as dawn, but the tinted visor of your helmet meant that the strobe effect was barely an inconvenience. You’ve lost the helmet by now, two of them in fact, as the shitty things pop open like cooked grubs at the gentlest knock and shatter easily. Every time someone sneaks past your awareness you get roughed up a little more.

          Across the chaos of the war zone you can see the familiar figure of your kismesis shrouded in snapping sparks of rust-tinted silver. He is responsible for some of the eerie glow dominating the field, and also for a good portion of the flashes proving a regular inconvenience to you. A sneer interrupts the grim smile which has set up shop on your face. At least for you it’s nothing more than an irritation. For once you are not sorry to see his anger focused elsewhere; each crack of psionic charge heralds the messy deaths of trolls unfortunate enough to be within his area of awareness. It is every bit as exciting as you’d hoped and more impressive than you will ever admit.

          You spy movement while you have your gaze turned in his direction and see a silhouette crouching at the lip of a still-standing structure. They begin to raise the barrel of a weapon towards the levitating figure dealing mass devastation to government lives and property, and the sneer on your lips rips into a snarl. Your rifle swings up in one practised motion and the troll jerks when a hole is blown clean through their neck. They fall from the building’s edge and hit the ground.

          “Nice job watching your back, dumbass!” You yell over the cracked stone of your shelter, looking around for more offending government agents. The set of his horns shifts towards you and you flinch as psionic energy snaps in your immediate vicinity. Three nearby trolls are simultaneously charred into husks and smeared against nearby surfaces as their bodies are blasted into the surrounding rubble.

          “You too, finfuck.” The taunt carries over to you on a breeze hot with the sharp smell of ozone. You decide it is once again time to change locations.

          You scan your surroundings and wait for another flash to push away from the statue of some troll bureaucrat, sprinting for the shade of a nearby building. The roof is torn away, you’re fairly sure this one was on you, but thus far the structure is still standing.

          You reach the door just as the whiteness is clearing from your vision, pause to toss a grenade inside and duck against the wall while the resulting explosion buffets your fins. When you follow it inside there is one troll lying against the wall and the remains of a second scattered around the floor. The first one twitches so you shoot him for good measure.

          You can’t get your gun around in time when the third one jumps you from the side.

          Her government-issued knife is long and serrated, and she drives it straight into your side just above your gill slit. Violet blood accompanies the scream that explodes from your mouth as the edges carve into you. That scream shudders out and fades to a hoarse wheeze even as you slam your elbow into her throat and knock her back through the door she emerged from. You follow her through with your blood colour tinting your vision.

          You have lost count of the number of trolls you’ve killed in the past several hours and long-since stopped keeping track of the injuries you’ve taken. Your jumpsuit is full of rends and holes. In places melted polymers are fused onto your burnt skin. You don’t dare touch the knife handle still jutting from your ribs but simply clear the room and then keep moving with blood throbbing at your temples and a lust for death burning a hole in your gut.

          It is a long time before the haze clears from your vision enough for you to take note of the pervasive stillness which has taken hold of the night. You no-longer hear the echoing sounds of gunfire, and it has been some time since an explosion rocked through your awareness. You realise that the glow beginning to spread over the blasted remains of the city district you have cleared is now the light of pre-dawn.

          Slowly you pick your way between ruined structures in search of your kismesis. Blood drips in a sluggish trail as you stagger around heaps of fallen stone and corpses made unrecognisable by the injuries which earned them their deaths. Some of those injuries you are responsible for, but you can’t find the energy right now to regret the obscene amount of violence which you dealt towards other trolls tonight. The government had them digging their own graves long before you came along to finish the job.

          Irritation nags at you the longer it takes to find him. The light grows marginally less faint every minute you waste seeking your partner, and the possibility of daytime enforcement stealing in to take advantage of your disorientation becomes increasingly likely. He probably ditched as soon as the air pollution first began to bleed sunlight over the horizon, damn him. It would be just like Mituna to leave you in the lurch after the hard work is over so he can snicker over the pan-ache it gives you, never even mind that pan-aches are the least of your worries considering that you’ve got a goddamn knife lodged in your respiratory system.

          But you drag yourself down a few more streets regardless, heading towards the last place you can remember seeing him. Something is chewing at your bile bladder that isn’t post-combat jitters. He should have contacted you by now. You check the little phone you keep for helmetless emergencies to confirm for the fourth time that there is no text from him, no message taunting you to show some discretion for once and ditch the scene before you cause yourself even more trouble. The only recent updates on the screen are two outgoing messages you sent five minutes ago in a fit of irritation.

          CA: Where the fuck are yo+u?

          CA: Jo+ke’s o+n yo+u assho+le. I’m all wo+und up no+w and yo+u’re missing the sho+w.

          You shove the phone back into your sylladex with a growl of frustration and spear your gaze around the desolate ruins of a small courtyard. He’s not here. You aren’t going to find him anywhere in this blasted neighbourhood and each time you take a breath it feels like the knife in your side stabs in a bit harder. You need to leave before you really do get taken out by the daytime law or just the daytime in general. You turn away from a ruined fountain to head for the spot you stashed Stormbiter for safekeeping.

          The sight of his body hits you like a punch to the gut.

          He is lying at the mouth of the alley you were about to turn onto, and the way he’s positioned makes you wonder if he fell there on purpose. You drag your feet until you are standing next to him, looking down at the burned-out ruin that remains of his anatomy. The overpowering smell of ozone and cooked flesh makes you gag a little.

          “Ffck you, Ampora.” The wheeze is accompanied out of his mouth by a dribble of dark red.

          Nausea roils at the back of your throat as you crouch next to him. You don’t need to try moving his body to know he’ll be dead before the sun rises. It’s amazing he’s still speaking. “Not this time, lightshow,” you reply, with a sneer for his benefit.

          “What. Too mulch?” It takes him a beat before he opens his mouth to try again. “Mulched.”

          “I’d say you should see the other guys, but I’m not sure I could locate their smoking remains.” You wince a little at the effort of holding a conversation with a knife lodged below your diaphragm. “I definitely got more than you though.”

          “You weren’t. Vaporizing.”

          “Yeah, well you weren’t running around with several inches of metal jammed into your ribs.”

          He wheezes a little in response and you grit your fangs at the sight of him. You knew he was reaching the end of the line even before the two of you wound up surrounded by government barkbeasts with your mutual extermination on their agenda. Despite the heat of the conflict he has barely an injury on him besides the overwhelming trauma that his own psionics have inflicted on his body. “Fuck,” you growl. “Fuck, you smug piece of _shit_ , this is exactly the kind of crap you don’t ever shut up about. You just had to go out in a blaze of glory didn’t you, you fucking goddamn _hypocrite_.”

          He moves his shoulders in the limp suggestion of a shrug. “Gonna go anyway. ‘M not a finfuck.” The way he just says it like that just pisses you off more. Even mostly dead he’s such an unrepentant realist. “Don’t be shit,” he slurs. “I’ll haunt you.”

          “Like hell you will,” you snarl. “You’re probably going off to Valhalla or something stupid like that, who gives a shit.” He gives you a sneer which perfectly captures just how much of an absolute dipshit he thinks you are and you start to lean closer for just an instant, until the blinding pain reminds you what a terrible idea that is. You sit down hard beside him instead, and try not to breathe too deeply while Mituna slowly curls in on himself.

          It doesn’t matter whether you leave now or not; there’s no way you’re going to be able to make it back to base before dawn breaks. Without your visor you won’t be able to navigate. You curse again and he growls out a mess of syllables that you assume is an insult. You force yourself to meet his glare despite the way it makes your chest want to heave. He’s never going to look at you like that again.

          “Fuck you, Megido,” you hiss, and it’s so hard to speak around the rage in your throat you’re not sure he even heard you. Then he sneers and his horns spark a little. You jolt as the sting of psionics shivers weakly through your body, an insult already forming on your lips. But by the time you open them his gaze is dull, his chest unmoving. A strangled howl comes out instead.

          You can’t waste time sitting by the body. Biting back hisses of pain as the heaving in your chest causes the knife to tear at your flesh, you take your phone out and push yourself erect. It takes a few moments for you to send a text to Maryam letting him know where to find you. Then you look down, hesitation gripping your limbs. The government shouldn’t have his body. Taking a bottle of combustible fluid and a pack of matches from your sylladex, you douse him and scrape a match into ignition, then drop it onto him to finish the job his own psionic abilities started. Flames crawl over him like ants and you clench your teeth until your jaw aches.

          There’s nothing left for you in this ruined courtyard, and smoke is beginning to coil into the pale morning air. It’s past time you disappeared. You step over the burning husk that used to be your kismesis and, eyes lowered against the gathering dawn, stumble down the alley alone.


End file.
